Congress has now approved, and the president has signed into law, five fiscal year (FY) 2019 appropriations bills, including funding for the Departments of Defense, Energy, and Education, as well as the National Institutes of Health. When Congress returns in mid-November for a lame-duck session, it will consider the remaining seven bills, which would replace funding now set to expire on December 7. While the FY2019 appropriations process has gone smoothly so far, a fight over border wall funding could derail the process.
